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HomeShop at BookSurgePerforming ArtsDanceNotationDisappearing Otis |
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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 3 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Smart, sharp, hilarious, more. Jul 11, 2007
By Griselda Torres
My first chuckle came from the title of this book's first chapter - "The Dead Cat" - and Jen Waldo's writing kept a smile on my lips from then on. The author gives each of her characters their own quirky voice and outlook - each of them sees and lives life differently, and each of these perspectives is comical in its own skewed way. There is ironic humor dripping from each confrontation, decision, catastrophe, and revelation. "Disappearing Otis" is not simply a comedy, though; in fact, I took away a good deal more from my reading than I expected to.
This leads into what I personally found to be the book's greatest strength: there could be a great deal of tension going on between her characters, yet the ironic style kept me amused and grinning even while the book's themes were playing out through some of the more tragic or emotional sections. And the humor doesn't get in the way of the plot or character development, either. The story is well told and I came to care for each of the flawed and varied people in Jen Waldo's Texas panhandle city. Overall, she succeeds in providing a very amusing read which also causes the mind to ponder questions of morality and free will along the way.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
I really enoyed this! Jul 09, 2007
By Dagny Taggart
I read this book on a whim and was really blown away by how interesting all these characters are. In only around 250 pages, Jen Waldo manages to tell a story about the homeless, time travel, sexually permissive librarians, divorce, lust, and (sure enough) disappearing and reappearing body parts.
The plot is a sort of Sliding Doors take-off, but much more dramatic, the comedy coming from subtle irony and quirky dialogue (especially from the boy-genius, Gary). The novel hinges on the question of, "What if?" In this case, what if one member of a marriage perpetuated a tragic series of events instead of another? The tragic series of events in this case being the death of a child. All of this is of course controlled by the mystical wanderer, "Otis," who is only trying to help out his adopted family by granting their wishes, but you know what they say--beware what you wish for...
 Dry humor & mystical character weave the lives of several May 31, 2008
By Leanne Smith
What a surprising read!
This book had several 'dramas' going on at the same time, and did a good job of transitioning the reader from one group of characters to another. The book somewhat reminded me of House of Sand & Fog, which was tragic, yet with clever humor offsetting the drama, showed how interconnected we are.
One thing I struggled with in the beginning was learning quickly enough about the characters to be able to follow the plots. I ended up going very carefully through the first pages to feel confident that when "character A" was being further developed, I had a good basis for who that character was. After the first few pages, I could not put the book down - fun to read.
I thought it was very clever how the author had us relive the tragic death of a child - two totally different perspectives on the survivors. Jen Waldo gives the reader a real opportunity to look at how they would respond to such a tragedy if placed in the same set of circumstances.
Wait until you meet Otis. After reading the book, I have thought back several times about his role. In fact, I have asked my Book Club leader to read the book with the idea of proposing this as a "most interesting book to discuss among several thinkers".
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